Xabi Alonso has rejected suggestions that Chelsea were bullied by Sunderland – but admitted his side did not deserve to win at the Stadium of Light.
The Blues were beaten 1-0 by a Sunderland side who had not won since August, with Enzo Le Fée scoring a first-half penalty after Levi Colwill hauled down Brian Brobbey.
Asked at his post-match press conference whether Chelsea had been bullied, Alonso said: “No, not bullied. I would say that there were situations that we could have defended better, situations where we could have got better advantages in attack, but the game was really, really even, really competitive.
“They were waiting for the chance and they got it. We were trying but we were not producing much.”
Alonso was far from happy with the way his side defended the penalty incident.
“Not happy with how we defended that situation,” he said. “Something that we could avoid, something that we had worked on during the week, and from that action to give a penalty is not good from us.”
Brobbey caused Chelsea problems all afternoon, but Alonso insisted the Dutch striker was not unstoppable “when you defend better than we did today”.
The Chelsea boss also admitted the result was not far off fair.
“I think that we didn’t deserve more than probably one point. The game was really close. Not much happened, to be honest, just that action,” he said.
“We didn’t produce enough to deserve to win. We were against the low block. We missed a bit of patience, a little bit of quality, creativity in the last third to create more chances.”
Colwill, who was booked for the foul, was taken off at half-time, with Alonso explaining: “There was the risk with a yellow card as well. We didn’t want to take risk.”
Chelsea, who are also short of options because of injuries, return to action against Leeds after the international break.
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